For My Grandfather

On a warm Florida summer day, I sat across from my grandfather as he told me the stories that made him. Now I must say that this was not any strange sort of phenomenon, for I can recall many times when grandpa would sit me down and tell me about some interesting recollection from his past, interspersed with poems of the like of Georgy D. Wash. But on this particular occasion, he told me so many of his stories that it was indeed difficult to remember them all. I sat there and listened as he recounted to me his days at General Motors, his seasons with his daughters at the summer house and the later days after his retirement. And of course, it would be silly for me to retell such stories, for grandpa could tell them much better than I. So instead, I choose to write about that which grandpa gave to me: a love of stories.

A story makes a man. A man cannot merely be understood by the company that he represents or the job he works or even the church he attends, for they are merely descriptors. Nor can a man’s life be determined by the list of his work history or his resume, no matter how detailed. They are merely words on a page, meaningless symbols that are devoid of the man himself. They are simply suggestions or hints as to what a man could possibly be, but in all reality never tell us who he really was.

But a man’s story takes these descriptions and makes them walk, and in walking, we see the man. And when we see a man, we see the image of God Himself. And so it may not be too much of a stretch to say that when my grandfather sat me down on that warm Florida summer day, I looked into the face of God Himself, and I heard His story played out in the life of a man who was dedicated to his family and to his work.

For my grandfather is indeed a great man, despite his simple descriptors. He has lived in poverty and wealth, in joy and sorrow, in love and frustration, in nostalgia and hope. He has seen the fear of war and the glory of victory, the sweat of hard work and the success of industry, and the rise and fall of nations. He has walked the world for ninety years, some good and some bad, and we all hope that his years will not end quickly.

But we do know that we all fall asleep and wake up to be with the Lord. And though my grandfather will see the Lord a sight better than most, we are still here left with the noses on our faces staring up into heaven and hoping that we might see some inkling of glory. And we will be left with his story and because of that he will live on beyond my parents and beyond me and my siblings and, Lord willing, beyond my children. They will know that Dwight Duane Dunn was a man who strived on this earth with the best and the worst and told his story to a young kid on a warm Florida summer day.

And I will never forget it.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel for our stories weave into the grand narrative of this life, and we believe ourselves to be part of Your story as long as You wish it.